Secrets She Kept (12 page)

HANNAH STERLING

JANUARY 1973

Carl Schmidt waited by his car for me the next morning, ready to renew our tour. But I bore no stomach for touring Berlin, no matter his insistence and unadulterated enthusiasm for “the city’s world-renowned Tiergarten, boasting animals in as near their natural habitat as possible.”

A respectful audience, I nodded at the loveliness of the pond he pointed to, listening only with my face. All the while my brain conjured pictures of concentration camps and Jews being shamed and beaten, worked to death and gassed
 
—by someone who might have been my father.

“And the hip bone is connected to the leg bone, and the leg bone is connected to the ankle bone, and they’re all connected to the eye socket. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“What? Oh, yes, yes, of course.”

Carl stopped in the middle of the Tiergarten path. “You’ve not heard a thing I’ve said.”

“Of course I have. I’ve heard
 
—” I stopped too. Those raised eyebrows again.

“I don’t usually have such poor effect on my clients, especially my feminine clients.” His smile disarmed me.

“I’m sorry. I’m really not very good company today, Carl. Maybe you should take me back to my grandfather’s.”

“And lose my employment? I’m under strict orders to help you discover Berlin as the most fascinating city on earth.”

“You’ve done a splendid job. But I just can’t stop thinking about the reason I came here in the first place, and it wasn’t to see the sights.”

“Ah, your family.”

“Yes.” I picked up a stone and cast it into the pond, nearly skimming the ear off a little boy. “Oh, dear.”

“Those are lethal weapons in the hands of a distracted woman.”

I closed my eyes. Why couldn’t the world just go away?

“Do you want to talk about it? Would that help?”

“It’s too humiliating.”

“You’re talking to a man who’s grown up with humiliation ground into him.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true of every German. We’re tainted. The ‘sins of our fathers,’ you know.”

I knew precisely what he meant.
What about the sins of my father?
But he’d offered to help, and there was no one else. “I came here because I’d thought my mother had no family. My mother always claimed to be Austrian, and that all her family died during the war. When I learned I had a grandfather living, I couldn’t believe it, and I couldn’t wait to come, to meet him.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“So, last night I learned that my mother ran away from home.”

He waited. I turned away, bit my lip, testing the waters to see if I could speak without crying. I tried again. My breath caught. It was no use.

“Many young people run away from home,” he offered.

“This was during the war. She got caught up with some radical group.”

“Your Grossvater told you this?”

“Dr. Peterson. He’s been the physician of the family forever
 
—Grandfather’s friend and colleague since before the war.”

“Ah, there were many political groups dur
 
—”

“He said she ran off, that she shamed the family and hurt Grandfather so he never recovered.” I turned away again, unable to look at him, to guess what he, a modern German who’d probably grown up after the war, must think of me, of my mother. “I think my mother was a Nazi
 
—probably an extreme Nazi.”

“Did this Dr. Peterson tell you so?”

“Yes
 
—well, no, not word for word. But what else could such shame connected with a radical group mean at that time?”

“You forget that in Germany during the war there was no shame in being a Nazi. There was, in fact, great pressure to join the Nazi Party. Those who didn’t were blacklisted and, if they were vocal in their opposition, sometimes sent away
 
—arrested, taken to camps. If your Mutter
 
—your mother
 
—was part of a radical group, that meant she was in all probability not a Nazi, but opposed to the Nazis. And Herr Sommer, of all people . . .” Carl had become quite animated, almost indignant, but stopped.

“What do you mean, ‘of all people’?” But I could see that he was struggling with what to say, or maybe how much. “Carl, what do you mean?”

“This is a family matter. You should ask your Grossvater.”

“But I can’t talk with him. He speaks no English!”

“Herr Wolfgang Sommer speaks English. Do not say I told you this, but I know he does. Everyone who knows him admires his ability to speak excellent English. They are playing you for a fool, Hannah Sterling. Shame on you if you let them get away with it.”

I couldn’t stop thinking of Carl’s words . . .
“They are playing you for a fool, Hannah Sterling.”
Why? Why would Grandfather pretend he can’t speak English? So he can study me without committing to me
 
—easier to send me packing when he feels he’s done his duty by me? So I won’t ask questions he doesn’t want to answer? And if Grandfather was ashamed of Mama because she spoke or worked against the Nazis, does that mean he was for them?

If only I could turn back the clock and see what happened, witness the events that shaped them all. I’d been in Berlin three days and was no closer to solving the mystery of my mother
 
—only compounding the issues.

And then I thought of Aunt Lavinia, and what she’d say:
There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

The next morning I listened for Frau Winkler’s steps on the stairs. She’d just put on the coffee and was slicing brown bread from the loaf when I startled her in the kitchen.

“I’d like to take Grandfather his breakfast when it’s ready, Frau Winkler.”

Her eyes widened. “
Nein
, I must help him shave and lay out his clothes.”

“Is that something you do before or after he eats?”

“After he eats, of course
 
—”

“Then I’ll let you know when I’ve finished talking with him.”

“You know German already,” she mocked. “So soon?”

“I think we both know that isn’t necessary,” I said softly. “Is it?”

She turned her back to me, intent on the breadboard.

“The first night I thought it odd that Herr Eberhardt didn’t translate everything Grandfather seemed to comprehend. And last night Dr. Peterson didn’t even ask him before Grandfather ordered him to show me the library. I came here to learn about my mother, and it seems everyone is playing games with me . . . even you, Frau Winkler. But for the life of me, I don’t understand why.”

“Old houses don’t give up their secrets easily, Fräulein Hannah. The things that happened during the war
 
—even years before the war
 
—still haunt all of us. The world condemns every man, woman, and child in Germany.”

She sounded like Carl, but I really couldn’t grasp that in light of people like them. And that didn’t explain the rift in my family. Could there be two different sides to Mama’s story? “You said you were only here for five or six years. How do you know anything about my family before that?”

“I’ve lived in this neighborhood all my life.”

“You knew my mother?”

“
Nein
. But I remember seeing her. As a child. My family lived in the next block. I was younger.” Frau Winkler wrapped the loaf in a tea towel and set it in the cupboard. “She was very beautiful, with her golden hair and smile . . . turning the boys’ heads as she walked to school.”

“Did she have a boyfriend?”

“She paid them no mind. Not until I saw her walk out with her beau . . . her older brother’s friend, I think.”

My heart pounded against the walls of my chest. “Do you remember the boy’s name?”

“
Nein
, I did not know him.”

“Did he live in this street, or yours?”

“
Nein
. I don’t know anything.” She glanced at me, then looked away. “Perhaps your Grossvater knows.”

I swallowed. To be this close . . . possibly . . . I smoothed my hands over my skirt. “I’ll carry Grandfather’s tray.”

Frau Winkler raised her brows and poured the coffee.

I knocked three times on the door.

“Eintreten.”
Grandfather did not sound at all frail, more the authoritarian.

I pushed open the door. “I asked Frau Winkler to let me bring up your breakfast, Grossvater. The coffee smells wonderful this morning.”

“Hannah.” His eyes registered surprise as I set the tray on his bedside table.

“It’s time I started earning my keep, don’t you think?” I smiled.

He frowned.
“Ich verstehe nicht.”

“Oh, Grossvater, that’s not entirely true, now is it? You do understand. We both know your English is excellent.” My heart pounded, but I stood my ground. He didn’t answer. Momentary confusion, then indignation, flashed through his eyes.

I took his hand gently in my own. “I don’t know why you’ve not trusted me. I want only to know you, to have you know me. You’re all the blood family I have now, Grossvater. Please don’t push me away.”

Hesitation flickered through his blue orbs, but they bore into mine, weighing me in the balance, searching my temper, my mettle. “You are not like your mother.”

“No? Who am I like?”

He ignored my question. “She would not be so direct.”

“Fearful? Shy?” I remembered that about her.

“Deceptive.” He pulled his hand away. “I do not wish to misplace my trust, not again.”

“I hope you’ll always have reason to trust me, Grossvater. I want very much to have a good relationship with you. There are so many things I want to know
 
—about you and Grossmutter, about my own mother, my father.”

He visibly winced. “No good comes from dredging up the past. Even the good cannot be relied upon.”

“And the bad? Don’t we sometimes need to understand what went wrong so we don’t repeat it?”

“We learn from experience, this is true. But if the pain is beyond endurance we cannot
 
—should not
 
—be asked to take it out and examine it. Your Mutter is gone, Hannah. Let her and her deeds rest in peace.”

“But I
 
—”

“If your intentions toward me are honorable, if you truly want to reunite our family, you will prove yourself trustworthy and do as I wish.”

“I do want that, but
 
—”

“Lieselotte broke the law
 
—the laws of Germany and the laws of my house. I never expected to say her name aloud again. I did not know for years that she moved to America, or until recently that she bore a child. I can only go forward in this life, not back. If this is enough for you, you are welcome to stay here, with me. You will be to me the child I lost.”

“Grandfather, I
 
—”

“If this is not enough for you, then you will return to America. I cannot bear another great loss. Do not ask this of me.” His eyes filled and I realized that this man, this German patriarch of my family, had humbled himself to make such a speech. But the promise he required of me was more than I could give.

“I want to please you, Grandfather
 
—Grossvater. I want to know you and love you and want you to know and love me.”

“Then it is settled. We move forward.” He squeezed my hand and gave a gruff smile.

It wasn’t all I wanted, but it was something I craved. I couldn’t resist a tease. “
Ja
, so, we move forward
 
—in English.”

He hesitated; then the sparkle in his eye warmed me.

When Dr. Peterson joined us for dinner that night, it was an entirely different affair. Grossvater spoke in English, except for an occasional lapse into German. He was more comfortable, free in his speech, almost jovial at times. But the tension emanating from Dr. Peterson was palpable.

“You must rejoice, my friend,” Grandfather egged him. “The lost lamb is found.”

But Dr. Peterson would not be cajoled, and at one point he let loose a torrent in German of which I understood nothing. Grandfather reacted strangely, raising his head as if considering his friend’s words, glancing at me almost suspiciously, then responding in German. When Dr. Peterson seemed to insist, Grandfather finally pounded his palm to the table, exclaiming, “Enough.” Both men sat back, and the meal continued in silence until Grandfather spoke to me again.

“You will continue your tours of Berlin, Hannah? You like all that you have seen and learned?”

“I’ve enjoyed them very much. But I’d rather spend time with you, Grossvater. It’s you I came to see, remember?” I smiled.

He smiled in return. “There will be much time for that, my child. I think it is well for you to learn your new city.”

The telephone rang in the hallway. Frau Winkler answered it, speaking quietly, then insistently in German. Grandfather’s hearing seemed to vastly improve and he called out to her. She opened the dining room door, explaining . . . something else in German I could not understand.

Grandfather stood, reaching for his cane. “Excuse me, Hannah, I must talk with this man.”

The dining room door closed and it seemed the light went out along with Grandfather. Dr. Peterson’s dislike of me shut off the air.

“You realize the fragility of your Grosssvater’s health, Fräulein Sterling.” It wasn’t a question.

“Not entirely, Dr. Peterson. He seems much relieved and stronger since we’ve come to a better understanding. Since I no longer need you to translate for me,” I said pointedly.

“Then it is important that you should know, that you should understand why your presence is of the greatest concern.”

“And what is it I should understand?” The man was beginning to unnerve me.

“That Herr Sommer is dying. He has three months to live . . . at most. I will not have you upsetting him.”

I didn’t care that Frau Winkler was off duty. As soon as I bid Grandfather and Dr. Peterson good night I tiptoed to her room, knocked softly on her door. She’d already changed into her dressing gown.